


Drop Of You

by merrythoughts



Series: (Drabbles) Your Eyes Say So Much To Me [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Bittersweet, Coping, Denial, Emotional Hurt, Friendship, Gen, Hallucinations, Letters, M/M, Mid-season 3, Pining, Pre-Slash, Stand Alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 04:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10209836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merrythoughts/pseuds/merrythoughts
Summary: The letter, as always, comes in a larger brown manila envelope care of Jack Crawford at the FBI office in Baltimore.[Stand alone/drabble]





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dapperscript](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dapperscript/gifts).



> Can be read as a stand alone.  
> Coming up in chapter 9 of [Do You Feel The Hunger, Does It Howl Inside?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9529106/chapters/21546362), Will brings up Hannibal's letters and I felt inspired to write a little scenearoo with Will being bitter and sad.
> 
> Hannibal's letter is, of course, written by Dapperscript who is the only Hannibal I ever need! ♥ Thanks for always inspiring me and being so damn awesome with your insight and enthusiasm for our lil story.

The letter, as always, comes in a larger brown manila envelope care of Jack Crawford at the FBI office in Baltimore. Will Graham doesn't want to think of good 'ole Jack reading through any of his mail - let alone correspondence from Hannibal Lecter - but it can’t be helped in this case. Like a nesting doll, a smaller envelope - already opened - is inside. Centered, his name runs along it in beautiful elegant script. Will sighs at the sight and needs to take a moment to gather himself. He tosses the outer envelope into the fire, watches it be eaten up, the fire greedy and crackling in contentment.

A flash of a memory ignites, of another fire place, of the last time they were physically together in Lecter's office, burning patient records, drawings of clocks and speaking candidly about a grand memory palace and his own stream. ( _You can make it all go away)._.. But that wasn’t true, no. Both Hannibal’s chapel and his stream, they were only ever temporary escapes. Reality remained when their eyes opened. Hannibal could walk through the streets of Paris or sit in a church pew, but he’d still be sleeping on a cot in a cell come nightfall.  
  
Will takes another drink and his throat burns while the envelope burns. It's a somewhat enjoyable and familiar sensation. Late at night, Hannibal's memory also burns, his scar lights up, sears, and repressed memories are drawn out. Will has to slip out of bed, pull on a thick sweater and make his way downstairs. Molly has said nothing of these times, aware of the phantoms that haunt her husband and knowing that all she can do is give him space. Or at least Will hopes this is the case because he had only told her the barest of details regarding a certain notorious man's unhealthy fixation with him. Only the key players knew of the truth, Jack and Alana. Hannibal. Himself. Perhaps Chilton, but he wasn’t of any use anymore. Freddie too, could possibly be included.  
  
After the trials, he'd refused Hannibal's letters and Jack had looked like a pleased parent - his prodigal son finally making a decision that he could support. A clean break was the only way Will could hope to be free. He owed it to himself to try at least, but like his scar, Hannibal Lecter couldn't truly be hidden away. It had been little over a year when Will relented. The phone conversation had been awkward to say the least, Jack with his long suffering sigh had asked, "Are you sure that's for the best?" Will had answered honestly, "I don't know. Send them anyway” and hung up. Something Hannibal would have found unspeakably rude, no doubt.

So every so often he receives a letter that he knows Jack has deemed appropriate enough for his fragile self to handle. Some are cold, others cordial. All of them only ever amount to a drop of water on his tongue, never enough to quench, but just enough to ease a thirst that never truly leaves him.  
  
Whiskey glass set down, he flicks the envelope open and pulls out a single sheet of folded white paper. The next envelope is fed into the fire. His face is impassive as he unfolds the letter to take in the overall look of it, the achingly familiar scrawl. Pristine. Sharp. Antiquated. Completely pompous and completely Hannibal. It used to strike him as odd that someone as wordy as Hannibal would limit himself, but now it just seems strangely endearing for the man to be restraining himself in this endeavor.

Unblinking, Will's vision blurs, his focus dissipates and the words smear together, loops and lines cross and lose their form - he empathizes with the inky mess. It swirls, mixes, becomes a pool of blackness bleeding off the page, staining his hands, dripping onto the floor, creating a puddle before him. And from that inky puddle, a magnificent set of antlers emerges as real as the ravenstag he used to --  
  
Stop.  
  
He stops. Blinks. Breathes.

The image clears. The fire crackles. The letter remains in his hand.

_Dearest Will,_

They all start with either _Dear_ or _Dearest,_ and he can hear Hannibal's voice clearly in his head, that peculiarly charming lilt, his accented words...

  _As time passes, I find my thoughts turning to missed opportunities and burned bridges. A missed opportunity is perpetually poised, a mistake awaiting rectification. But the ashes of a burned bridge hold a different meaning. Once, before technology advanced, a burned bridge was symbolic of never turning back. The strictest implication of finality. Yet now bridges are burned and rebuilt, destroyed and reformed. The act of burning a bridge is crucial only in symbolism, not in reality._

_I wonder how many bridges you have burned. How many I have._

_I wonder if our numbers would match._

Will rolls his eyes and thinks, ‘not likely, you bastard’. Surely he couldn’t have left that much destruction in his wake, at least not to Hannibal’s degree. Uncomfortable with that line of thinking, he continues reading.

_One day, perhaps we will compare notes, and test the finality of whether bridges can truly reform, or if they will forever remain scattered as ash._

_Sincerely,_

_Hannibal Lecter_

Of course, Will’s immediate answer is ‘ash.’ There were to be no teacups coming back together, no bridges being rebuilt. Not for them.

(Still, a part of him wonders…)

Will is good at repairing things, he likes the straightforwardness of tinkering and putting pieces back together, but hearts are entirely another matter.

His heart has been beaten and bruised - tenderized like meat - and some things cannot be repaired.

* * *

_Hannibal,_

_I lied. I have thought about you. I tried not to. I didn't want you setting up residence in my mind. I didn't want your shadow looming over me, haunting me, ruining the peace I have sought here. I may bare an outward scar, but I had hoped to erase every last memory of you anyway, to purge myself of your wickedness. I had hoped that, away from your influence, I could finally be free._  
  
_It's not what you want for me, I know this, but I'd like to delude myself and think that there's a small part of you - the part that's my friend - would respect that I'm content here._  
  
_I miss that part, my friend, even though all you offered was shades and degrees of friendship. I think back and I do believe, amidst the games and deception, there was an honesty between us. Often not at the same time, no, that would have been too convenient, right?_  
  
_Perhaps in another life, in another reality, we could have walked side by side and you could have shown me Florence. I’m sure it would have been_

Will Graham never finishes or sends the letter. It, too, joins the fire.

He never writes another, but he still reads each one that comes his way.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Twenty One Pilots' [Addict With A Pen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iNxgm51Xw8). Title lifted from it. Go listen/read lyrics, 'tis good.


End file.
